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What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
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DavidSt Offline
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Post: #41
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
Long Beach State's head coach at the time before football was dropped, got money lineup from donors to build a brand new football stadium to keep them in FBS. Then after he gave the news to the AD and President at the time? The anti-football AD and the school president dropped football before the school could build the stadium. It crushed the spirits of the students, the community and the donors who wanted to keep football. The idea for Long Beach State to restart football was to join the MWC. MWC would be interested if schools in their area restarts football, upgrade their stadiums and move to D1. I think East Bay State wanted to restart football to go FCS in the future. School is located in Heyward, California.

Long Beach State
Illinois State
Indiana State
West Texas A&M
Lamar
McNeese State
Chattanooga
Western Carolina
Idaho

All looking to go or rumored as targets for FBS.
Delaware was a D1 major independent back in the 1930s would add a former high level school back to the top level.

Former independents or in major confernces before D1, 2 and 3 and FCS.

Southern Illinois
West Texas A&M (former rivals are New Mexico, New Mexico State, Texas Tech, North Texas, Wichita State, Tulsa, UTEP and Northern Arizona. Forcing them to FCS hurt them where they are located. They needed a waiver.)
Tennesee State was an Independent until 1982 in FBS. Now, they would not have been forced to FCS with their stadium size.
Montana and Montana State were always at the highest level.
Tampa U.
CSU.- Los Angeles
Cal. Poly-Pomona (before the PCAA was formed)
The old west coast conference before the PCAA was formed also had Chico State and Southern Oregon in the conference.
Chattanooga
East Tennessee State
Western Carolina been rumored of looking around.
Northern Michigan
SWAC 1977 conference that just moved to D1.
Washburn
Hardin-Simmons
Trinity,Texas

West Texas A&M was the school that really got the screw job in 1982. They could have joined UTEP in the WAC. They have won some conference football titles in Border and MVC.
08-01-2019 02:37 PM
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DavidSt Offline
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Post: #42
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
I just wondering about all this what the MVC and the WAC be today if none of the schools been forced down?

FBS Conferences:
WAC:
New Mexico State
Idaho
Lamar
West Texas State now A&M
McNeese State
Dixie State upgrading stadium to 15,000 as plan, but could build higher.
Sam Houston State
SFAU
UTRGV adds football
Texas State
UTSA
North Texas

California Baptist, Grand Canyon, Seattle U., UMKC, Utah Valley and Chicago State would never have been invited, but could start forming the Great West with NJIT.

Southland downgrades and adds Tarleton State, Central Oklahoma and Midwestern State. UCA, Incarnate Word and Abilene Christian and Houston Baptists gets invited as well.

MVC with Drake non-football.
Southern Illinois
Youngstown State
Indiana State
Illinois State
Western Illinois
Missouri State gets invited.
North Dakota State
Northern Iowa
North Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota State
Wichita State kept football.

Evansville, Drake, Valparaiso, and Loyola-Chicago could form a new conference and add the last eastern Summit school, Drury, Lewis, Bellarmine, Lincoln Memorial, and some private schools from the Horizon League.

Patriot League forms an FBS conference:
Holy Cross
Lafayette
Lehigh
Army
Navy
Fordham
Bucknell
Richmond
William & Mary
Colgate
Move the non-football schools to CAA.
Add Delaware and James Madison as 11 and 12. Towson could be here if one of the schools above can't move up. They were an associate in football.

Southern Conference:
Chattanooga
East Tennesse State
Furman
Mercer (rejoins after being a former Independent at the highest level.)
Western Carolina
Wofford
Jacksonville State
Tennessee State
Murray State
Eastern Kentucky
Kennesaw State
University of Charleston in W. V. or North Alabama as number 12.

This is just speculations. Non-football schools could go to non-FBS conferences. Some smaller stadiums like Samford go to A-Sun/Big South football.
08-02-2019 04:24 AM
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Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Offline
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Post: #43
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(07-31-2019 03:53 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  I always refer to it as 1981 because the vote was in late 1981 but it in no way, shape, nor form was related to 1978's creation of I-A/I-AA.

1981 was NCAA crassness at its prime. The powers in Shawnee Mission wanted OU and UGA to drop the anti-trust lawsuit, they wanted the CFA to quit trying to do its own TV.

The solution they came up with was change the "or" in the I-A criteria between sport sponsorship and attendance criteria to an "and" to eliminate a bunch of schools.

The NCAA tried to sugar coat making the following promises. There would be more post-season opportunities, there would be a minimum amount of TV coverage, and there would be no changes that would interfere with schools continuing to play each other if they ended up on different sides of the split.

Horse manure all around.
In short order post-season was deregulated in I-A and every FBS league ended up having more post-season opportunities than any FCS.
The TV deal couldn't be delivered because the NCAA lost the lawsuits and the TV contract.
Before the decade ended the 6-5 bowl eligibility rule was adopted and initially no wins over I-AA would count then it was only one win every four years.

That final change broke the camels back and spurred a dash of schools rushing to I-A. In short order, Akron, LaTech, AState and Nevada were all in or back in I-A and it didn't help when schools regularly playing them said they would no longer play because the bowl eligibility rules.

The schools forced into I-AA got screwed 10 ways to Sunday as the NCAA didn't deliver on the promises and failed the primary missing on keeping the power school using the NCAA to negotiate the TV deal.

I think this is a really radical mischaracterization of what actually happened.

You are portraying it like the evil stepmother NCAA somehow tricked half its member schools into accepting indentured servitude. That’s just completely ridiculous.

Ask yourself, who exactly is the NCAA and where exactly does it derive its power? Further, how did all these rules get passed in the first place?

Because member schools voted on them!

The NCAA is a membership organization. It is not some outside entity that somehow works outside the purview of its member schools. The “NCAA” is just a term for a collection of schools that agree to play by a certain set of rules. As such, the NCAA does what its members want it to do.

If there was a split between the haves and the have-note in the late 70s and early 80s, it was only because the majority of that organization’s membership obviously wanted that split to happen.

What happened in the late 70s and early 80s was that a lot of schools – especially the Ivy League schools that had initially dominated the college football landscape but had steadily lost ground over the decades — had lost their appetite for continually pouring resources into the college athletics black hole because they felt that it was coming at the direct expense of their core academic mission and also because they saw no end in sight to the arms race.

However, they still wanted to compete in high-level athletics.

In other words, a heck of a lot of teams that opted for 1-AA/FCS did so because they were very happy stabilize their extracurricular spending. You will note that the NCAA has not disbanded FCS, which obviously would have happened if everyone - or even the majority of schools- truly hated it.

However, the game-changer happened a few years later when Oklahoma and Georgia won their television lawsuit against the NCAA. That changed the calculus entirely and ultimately paved the way for the super-conference era that has in turn spawned the current dynamic with an organized postseason, conference raiding, conference dedicated television networks, and just an enormous amount of money coming into the haves at the direct expense of the have nots.

The reason we have a burgeoning amount of schools in FBS now is that it is difficult for even small FBS programs like my alma mater, Ohio University, to pass up the money that FBS membership provides. That lure has proven too much for schools like Old Dominion and Liberty and I’m sure others will follow.

Also, some of the schools in the smaller FBS leagues look at the obscene gobs of money continually being pulled in by the schools in the major conferences and of course they want to piece of that pie as well.

Take the AAC, for example. Fans/trustees of every single one of the schools in that league thinks their team is eventually going to be invited into the Big 12, the ACC, etc. why else do you think there’s been a facilities boom in that league? Do you think UCF would have a new stadium without the promise that it’s the start of something very special? What about Houston? Until recently, Connecticut? Cincinnati?

None of those facilities get anywhere near the amount of money they’ve gotten if there wasn’t a firm belief that it will one day pay off in the form of competing at the highest level of the sport – which is obviously not happening now.

Now, obviously those schools are more than worthy of doing that. This is not an indictment of the quality of those schools or their programs, but rather an acknowledgment of the nature of the system.
08-02-2019 09:58 AM
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orangefan Offline
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Post: #44
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(08-02-2019 09:58 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  
(07-31-2019 03:53 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  I always refer to it as 1981 because the vote was in late 1981 but it in no way, shape, nor form was related to 1978's creation of I-A/I-AA.

1981 was NCAA crassness at its prime. The powers in Shawnee Mission wanted OU and UGA to drop the anti-trust lawsuit, they wanted the CFA to quit trying to do its own TV.

The solution they came up with was change the "or" in the I-A criteria between sport sponsorship and attendance criteria to an "and" to eliminate a bunch of schools.

The NCAA tried to sugar coat making the following promises. There would be more post-season opportunities, there would be a minimum amount of TV coverage, and there would be no changes that would interfere with schools continuing to play each other if they ended up on different sides of the split.

Horse manure all around.
In short order post-season was deregulated in I-A and every FBS league ended up having more post-season opportunities than any FCS.
The TV deal couldn't be delivered because the NCAA lost the lawsuits and the TV contract.
Before the decade ended the 6-5 bowl eligibility rule was adopted and initially no wins over I-AA would count then it was only one win every four years.

That final change broke the camels back and spurred a dash of schools rushing to I-A. In short order, Akron, LaTech, AState and Nevada were all in or back in I-A and it didn't help when schools regularly playing them said they would no longer play because the bowl eligibility rules.

The schools forced into I-AA got screwed 10 ways to Sunday as the NCAA didn't deliver on the promises and failed the primary missing on keeping the power school using the NCAA to negotiate the TV deal.

I think this is a really radical mischaracterization of what actually happened.

You are portraying it like the evil stepmother NCAA somehow tricked half its member schools into accepting indentured servitude. That’s just completely ridiculous.

Ask yourself, who exactly is the NCAA and where exactly does it derive its power? Further, how did all these rules get passed in the first place?

Because member schools voted on them!

The NCAA is a membership organization. It is not some outside entity that somehow works outside the purview of its member schools. The “NCAA” is just a term for a collection of schools that agree to play by a certain set of rules. As such, the NCAA does what its members want it to do.

If there was a split between the haves and the have-note in the late 70s and early 80s, it was only because the majority of that organization’s membership obviously wanted that split to happen.

What happened in the late 70s and early 80s was that a lot of schools – especially the Ivy League schools that had initially dominated the college football landscape but had steadily lost ground over the decades — had lost their appetite for continually pouring resources into the college athletics black hole because they felt that it was coming at the direct expense of their core academic mission and also because they saw no end in sight to the arms race.

However, they still wanted to compete in high-level athletics.

In other words, a heck of a lot of teams that opted for 1-AA/FCS did so because they were very happy stabilize their extracurricular spending. You will note that the NCAA has not disbanded FCS, which obviously would have happened if everyone - or even the majority of schools- truly hated it.

However, the game-changer happened a few years later when Oklahoma and Georgia won their television lawsuit against the NCAA. That changed the calculus entirely and ultimately paved the way for the super-conference era that has in turn spawned the current dynamic with an organized postseason, conference raiding, conference dedicated television networks, and just an enormous amount of money coming into the haves at the direct expense of the have nots.

The reason we have a burgeoning amount of schools in FBS now is that it is difficult for even small FBS programs like my alma mater, Ohio University, to pass up the money that FBS membership provides. That lure has proven too much for schools like Old Dominion and Liberty and I’m sure others will follow.

Also, some of the schools in the smaller FBS leagues look at the obscene gobs of money continually being pulled in by the schools in the major conferences and of course they want to piece of that pie as well.

Take the AAC, for example. Fans/trustees of every single one of the schools in that league thinks their team is eventually going to be invited into the Big 12, the ACC, etc. why else do you think there’s been a facilities boom in that league? Do you think UCF would have a new stadium without the promise that it’s the start of something very special? What about Houston? Until recently, Connecticut? Cincinnati?

None of those facilities get anywhere near the amount of money they’ve gotten if there wasn’t a firm belief that it will one day pay off in the form of competing at the highest level of the sport – which is obviously not happening now.

Now, obviously those schools are more than worthy of doing that. This is not an indictment of the quality of those schools or their programs, but rather an acknowledgment of the nature of the system.

The Doctor is absolutely right about the NCAA. The NCAA has no interest in the outcome, it's members do.

The fight that led to the split between I-A and I-AA was largely among members falling into two groups. First, the big budget schools from power conferences and power independents, led by the Big Ten, versus the smaller revenue schools, led by the Ivy League. The fight was over how to split NCAA revenues. The Big Ten wanted a larger share of the pie, reasoning I'm sure that their games were the primary attractions for the NCAA's television deals. The small schools wanted to stay in Division I to maintain prestige and to collect money to support their athletes opportunity to compete at the highest level of collegiate sport. The split of D-I into I-A and I-AA was effectively a compromise both sides could accept.

Ironically, the NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma decision of the US Supreme Court mooted the issue of the financial split of football television revenues. Through this decision, the NCAA lost its primary source of revenue, its football television contracts. The NCAA responded by expanding and more aggressively focusing on the NCAA Basketball Tournament, which itself has become a huge cash cow. However, the NCAA Tournament revenue distribution formula still reflects some of the compromises of the I-A/I-AA split, featuring components for sports sponsored (helping the Ivies), scholarships offered (helping the B1G), plus some per capita distributions (for smaller budget schools) and a component for tournament success .
(This post was last modified: 08-02-2019 10:30 AM by orangefan.)
08-02-2019 10:27 AM
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solohawks Offline
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Post: #45
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
The conferences that were forced to reclassify to IAA could have done so when 1AA was first created. They didnt want to so the majority of the membership sprang these arbitrary rules in hopes of kicking teams out of the club
08-02-2019 11:08 AM
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Post: #46
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(08-02-2019 09:58 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  
(07-31-2019 03:53 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  I always refer to it as 1981 because the vote was in late 1981 but it in no way, shape, nor form was related to 1978's creation of I-A/I-AA.

1981 was NCAA crassness at its prime. The powers in Shawnee Mission wanted OU and UGA to drop the anti-trust lawsuit, they wanted the CFA to quit trying to do its own TV.

The solution they came up with was change the "or" in the I-A criteria between sport sponsorship and attendance criteria to an "and" to eliminate a bunch of schools.

The NCAA tried to sugar coat making the following promises. There would be more post-season opportunities, there would be a minimum amount of TV coverage, and there would be no changes that would interfere with schools continuing to play each other if they ended up on different sides of the split.

Horse manure all around.
In short order post-season was deregulated in I-A and every FBS league ended up having more post-season opportunities than any FCS.
The TV deal couldn't be delivered because the NCAA lost the lawsuits and the TV contract.
Before the decade ended the 6-5 bowl eligibility rule was adopted and initially no wins over I-AA would count then it was only one win every four years.

That final change broke the camels back and spurred a dash of schools rushing to I-A. In short order, Akron, LaTech, AState and Nevada were all in or back in I-A and it didn't help when schools regularly playing them said they would no longer play because the bowl eligibility rules.

The schools forced into I-AA got screwed 10 ways to Sunday as the NCAA didn't deliver on the promises and failed the primary missing on keeping the power school using the NCAA to negotiate the TV deal.

I think this is a really radical mischaracterization of what actually happened.

You are portraying it like the evil stepmother NCAA somehow tricked half its member schools into accepting indentured servitude. That’s just completely ridiculous.

Ask yourself, who exactly is the NCAA and where exactly does it derive its power? Further, how did all these rules get passed in the first place?

Because member schools voted on them!

The NCAA is a membership organization. It is not some outside entity that somehow works outside the purview of its member schools. The “NCAA” is just a term for a collection of schools that agree to play by a certain set of rules. As such, the NCAA does what its members want it to do.

If there was a split between the haves and the have-note in the late 70s and early 80s, it was only because the majority of that organization’s membership obviously wanted that split to happen.

What happened in the late 70s and early 80s was that a lot of schools – especially the Ivy League schools that had initially dominated the college football landscape but had steadily lost ground over the decades — had lost their appetite for continually pouring resources into the college athletics black hole because they felt that it was coming at the direct expense of their core academic mission and also because they saw no end in sight to the arms race.

However, they still wanted to compete in high-level athletics.

In other words, a heck of a lot of teams that opted for 1-AA/FCS did so because they were very happy stabilize their extracurricular spending. You will note that the NCAA has not disbanded FCS, which obviously would have happened if everyone - or even the majority of schools- truly hated it.

However, the game-changer happened a few years later when Oklahoma and Georgia won their television lawsuit against the NCAA. That changed the calculus entirely and ultimately paved the way for the super-conference era that has in turn spawned the current dynamic with an organized postseason, conference raiding, conference dedicated television networks, and just an enormous amount of money coming into the haves at the direct expense of the have nots.

The reason we have a burgeoning amount of schools in FBS now is that it is difficult for even small FBS programs like my alma mater, Ohio University, to pass up the money that FBS membership provides. That lure has proven too much for schools like Old Dominion and Liberty and I’m sure others will follow.

Also, some of the schools in the smaller FBS leagues look at the obscene gobs of money continually being pulled in by the schools in the major conferences and of course they want to piece of that pie as well.

Take the AAC, for example. Fans/trustees of every single one of the schools in that league thinks their team is eventually going to be invited into the Big 12, the ACC, etc. why else do you think there’s been a facilities boom in that league? Do you think UCF would have a new stadium without the promise that it’s the start of something very special? What about Houston? Until recently, Connecticut? Cincinnati?

None of those facilities get anywhere near the amount of money they’ve gotten if there wasn’t a firm belief that it will one day pay off in the form of competing at the highest level of the sport – which is obviously not happening now.

Now, obviously those schools are more than worthy of doing that. This is not an indictment of the quality of those schools or their programs, but rather an acknowledgment of the nature of the system.

I suggest you read the articles of the time that talk of NCAA staff and leadership trying to stop the litigation.

The NCAA staff stated that the forcibly reclassified would be given their own mini-TV package, expanded post-season access, and would be able to schedule I-A opponents exactly as they had before.

Those three promises plus the desire to avoid the destruction of the TV deal cornerstoned the vote. You can search the NCAA News archives as well as other major publications and read it all yourself.

The vote was taken with expectations regarding the treatment of the reclassified that were false.

Compare similar situations since that time and the collegial outcome of insuring no one gets kicked out has been the rule ever since.
08-02-2019 11:29 AM
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Gamecock Offline
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Post: #47
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(08-02-2019 09:58 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  The reason we have a burgeoning amount of schools in FBS now is that it is difficult for even small FBS programs like my alma mater, Ohio University, to pass up the money that FBS membership provides.

All these years and I finally figured out who you pull for haha. Maybe I'm just dense.
08-02-2019 12:27 PM
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Once a Knight... Offline
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Post: #48
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(08-02-2019 11:29 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 09:58 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  
(07-31-2019 03:53 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  I always refer to it as 1981 because the vote was in late 1981 but it in no way, shape, nor form was related to 1978's creation of I-A/I-AA.

1981 was NCAA crassness at its prime. The powers in Shawnee Mission wanted OU and UGA to drop the anti-trust lawsuit, they wanted the CFA to quit trying to do its own TV.

The solution they came up with was change the "or" in the I-A criteria between sport sponsorship and attendance criteria to an "and" to eliminate a bunch of schools.

The NCAA tried to sugar coat making the following promises. There would be more post-season opportunities, there would be a minimum amount of TV coverage, and there would be no changes that would interfere with schools continuing to play each other if they ended up on different sides of the split.

Horse manure all around.
In short order post-season was deregulated in I-A and every FBS league ended up having more post-season opportunities than any FCS.
The TV deal couldn't be delivered because the NCAA lost the lawsuits and the TV contract.
Before the decade ended the 6-5 bowl eligibility rule was adopted and initially no wins over I-AA would count then it was only one win every four years.

That final change broke the camels back and spurred a dash of schools rushing to I-A. In short order, Akron, LaTech, AState and Nevada were all in or back in I-A and it didn't help when schools regularly playing them said they would no longer play because the bowl eligibility rules.

The schools forced into I-AA got screwed 10 ways to Sunday as the NCAA didn't deliver on the promises and failed the primary missing on keeping the power school using the NCAA to negotiate the TV deal.

I think this is a really radical mischaracterization of what actually happened.

You are portraying it like the evil stepmother NCAA somehow tricked half its member schools into accepting indentured servitude. That’s just completely ridiculous.

Ask yourself, who exactly is the NCAA and where exactly does it derive its power? Further, how did all these rules get passed in the first place?

Because member schools voted on them!

The NCAA is a membership organization. It is not some outside entity that somehow works outside the purview of its member schools. The “NCAA” is just a term for a collection of schools that agree to play by a certain set of rules. As such, the NCAA does what its members want it to do.

If there was a split between the haves and the have-note in the late 70s and early 80s, it was only because the majority of that organization’s membership obviously wanted that split to happen.

What happened in the late 70s and early 80s was that a lot of schools – especially the Ivy League schools that had initially dominated the college football landscape but had steadily lost ground over the decades — had lost their appetite for continually pouring resources into the college athletics black hole because they felt that it was coming at the direct expense of their core academic mission and also because they saw no end in sight to the arms race.

However, they still wanted to compete in high-level athletics.

In other words, a heck of a lot of teams that opted for 1-AA/FCS did so because they were very happy stabilize their extracurricular spending. You will note that the NCAA has not disbanded FCS, which obviously would have happened if everyone - or even the majority of schools- truly hated it.

However, the game-changer happened a few years later when Oklahoma and Georgia won their television lawsuit against the NCAA. That changed the calculus entirely and ultimately paved the way for the super-conference era that has in turn spawned the current dynamic with an organized postseason, conference raiding, conference dedicated television networks, and just an enormous amount of money coming into the haves at the direct expense of the have nots.

The reason we have a burgeoning amount of schools in FBS now is that it is difficult for even small FBS programs like my alma mater, Ohio University, to pass up the money that FBS membership provides. That lure has proven too much for schools like Old Dominion and Liberty and I’m sure others will follow.

Also, some of the schools in the smaller FBS leagues look at the obscene gobs of money continually being pulled in by the schools in the major conferences and of course they want to piece of that pie as well.

Take the AAC, for example. Fans/trustees of every single one of the schools in that league thinks their team is eventually going to be invited into the Big 12, the ACC, etc. why else do you think there’s been a facilities boom in that league? Do you think UCF would have a new stadium without the promise that it’s the start of something very special? What about Houston? Until recently, Connecticut? Cincinnati?

None of those facilities get anywhere near the amount of money they’ve gotten if there wasn’t a firm belief that it will one day pay off in the form of competing at the highest level of the sport – which is obviously not happening now.

Now, obviously those schools are more than worthy of doing that. This is not an indictment of the quality of those schools or their programs, but rather an acknowledgment of the nature of the system.

I suggest you read the articles of the time that talk of NCAA staff and leadership trying to stop the litigation.

The NCAA staff stated that the forcibly reclassified would be given their own mini-TV package, expanded post-season access, and would be able to schedule I-A opponents exactly as they had before.

Those three promises plus the desire to avoid the destruction of the TV deal cornerstoned the vote. You can search the NCAA News archives as well as other major publications and read it all yourself.

The vote was taken with expectations regarding the treatment of the reclassified that were false.

Compare similar situations since that time and the collegial outcome of insuring no one gets kicked out has been the rule ever since.

Not being around back then I am fascinated by this. How were these promises falsified and why weren't there lawsuits if the agreed upon terms were not upheld? Also, what part of the deal was falsified never happened? I'm assuming the FCS playoffs shows that postseason access did exist. Was it the mini-TV package? Normal scheduling against 1-A members?
08-02-2019 02:21 PM
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Once a Knight... Offline
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Post: #49
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(08-01-2019 10:58 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(07-31-2019 04:00 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  The only schools not going down without a fight will be the ones who are broke and use it as cover to avoid "voluntarily" dropping. Otherwise there will be a fight and if no one blinks we are headed to court and the courts ain't never been kind towards the NCAA in anti-trust matters.

That's why if another big divisional shakeup occurs *, it will be more likely to be the P5 leaving to form their own organization than via the P5 getting the NCAA to kick G5 schools out of FBS and down to FCS or to another made up division.

Legally, it's a lot harder to kick someone out of something they are already in, than to leave them behind for another place.



* ... which I don't actually see occurring, as the P5 likes having the G5 around.


SJ + MS 8/1/79
40 years, RIP

Is this not basically the same thing though? The P5 breaking off on their own vs kicking out the G5? The end result is still the same, the P5 and G5 would be separate division classifications essentially.
08-02-2019 02:23 PM
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solohawks Offline
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Post: #50
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(08-02-2019 02:21 PM)Once a Knight... Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 11:29 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 09:58 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  
(07-31-2019 03:53 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  I always refer to it as 1981 because the vote was in late 1981 but it in no way, shape, nor form was related to 1978's creation of I-A/I-AA.

1981 was NCAA crassness at its prime. The powers in Shawnee Mission wanted OU and UGA to drop the anti-trust lawsuit, they wanted the CFA to quit trying to do its own TV.

The solution they came up with was change the "or" in the I-A criteria between sport sponsorship and attendance criteria to an "and" to eliminate a bunch of schools.

The NCAA tried to sugar coat making the following promises. There would be more post-season opportunities, there would be a minimum amount of TV coverage, and there would be no changes that would interfere with schools continuing to play each other if they ended up on different sides of the split.

Horse manure all around.
In short order post-season was deregulated in I-A and every FBS league ended up having more post-season opportunities than any FCS.
The TV deal couldn't be delivered because the NCAA lost the lawsuits and the TV contract.
Before the decade ended the 6-5 bowl eligibility rule was adopted and initially no wins over I-AA would count then it was only one win every four years.

That final change broke the camels back and spurred a dash of schools rushing to I-A. In short order, Akron, LaTech, AState and Nevada were all in or back in I-A and it didn't help when schools regularly playing them said they would no longer play because the bowl eligibility rules.

The schools forced into I-AA got screwed 10 ways to Sunday as the NCAA didn't deliver on the promises and failed the primary missing on keeping the power school using the NCAA to negotiate the TV deal.

I think this is a really radical mischaracterization of what actually happened.

You are portraying it like the evil stepmother NCAA somehow tricked half its member schools into accepting indentured servitude. That’s just completely ridiculous.

Ask yourself, who exactly is the NCAA and where exactly does it derive its power? Further, how did all these rules get passed in the first place?

Because member schools voted on them!

The NCAA is a membership organization. It is not some outside entity that somehow works outside the purview of its member schools. The “NCAA” is just a term for a collection of schools that agree to play by a certain set of rules. As such, the NCAA does what its members want it to do.

If there was a split between the haves and the have-note in the late 70s and early 80s, it was only because the majority of that organization’s membership obviously wanted that split to happen.

What happened in the late 70s and early 80s was that a lot of schools – especially the Ivy League schools that had initially dominated the college football landscape but had steadily lost ground over the decades — had lost their appetite for continually pouring resources into the college athletics black hole because they felt that it was coming at the direct expense of their core academic mission and also because they saw no end in sight to the arms race.

However, they still wanted to compete in high-level athletics.

In other words, a heck of a lot of teams that opted for 1-AA/FCS did so because they were very happy stabilize their extracurricular spending. You will note that the NCAA has not disbanded FCS, which obviously would have happened if everyone - or even the majority of schools- truly hated it.

However, the game-changer happened a few years later when Oklahoma and Georgia won their television lawsuit against the NCAA. That changed the calculus entirely and ultimately paved the way for the super-conference era that has in turn spawned the current dynamic with an organized postseason, conference raiding, conference dedicated television networks, and just an enormous amount of money coming into the haves at the direct expense of the have nots.

The reason we have a burgeoning amount of schools in FBS now is that it is difficult for even small FBS programs like my alma mater, Ohio University, to pass up the money that FBS membership provides. That lure has proven too much for schools like Old Dominion and Liberty and I’m sure others will follow.

Also, some of the schools in the smaller FBS leagues look at the obscene gobs of money continually being pulled in by the schools in the major conferences and of course they want to piece of that pie as well.

Take the AAC, for example. Fans/trustees of every single one of the schools in that league thinks their team is eventually going to be invited into the Big 12, the ACC, etc. why else do you think there’s been a facilities boom in that league? Do you think UCF would have a new stadium without the promise that it’s the start of something very special? What about Houston? Until recently, Connecticut? Cincinnati?

None of those facilities get anywhere near the amount of money they’ve gotten if there wasn’t a firm belief that it will one day pay off in the form of competing at the highest level of the sport – which is obviously not happening now.

Now, obviously those schools are more than worthy of doing that. This is not an indictment of the quality of those schools or their programs, but rather an acknowledgment of the nature of the system.

I suggest you read the articles of the time that talk of NCAA staff and leadership trying to stop the litigation.

The NCAA staff stated that the forcibly reclassified would be given their own mini-TV package, expanded post-season access, and would be able to schedule I-A opponents exactly as they had before.

Those three promises plus the desire to avoid the destruction of the TV deal cornerstoned the vote. You can search the NCAA News archives as well as other major publications and read it all yourself.

The vote was taken with expectations regarding the treatment of the reclassified that were false.

Compare similar situations since that time and the collegial outcome of insuring no one gets kicked out has been the rule ever since.

Not being around back then I am fascinated by this. How were these promises falsified and why weren't there lawsuits if the agreed upon terms were not upheld? Also, what part of the deal was falsified never happened? I'm assuming the FCS playoffs shows that postseason access did exist. Was it the mini-TV package? Normal scheduling against 1-A members?

After forced reclassification games against 1AA members werent regularly counted for bowl eligibility which led to 1A teams dropping them. Promise broken

No tv deal because networks didnt have to deal with the NCAA to get games and didnt want to televise anything below the top tier. Promise broken
08-02-2019 02:51 PM
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Once a Knight... Offline
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Post: #51
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(08-02-2019 02:51 PM)solohawks Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 02:21 PM)Once a Knight... Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 11:29 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 09:58 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  
(07-31-2019 03:53 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  I always refer to it as 1981 because the vote was in late 1981 but it in no way, shape, nor form was related to 1978's creation of I-A/I-AA.

1981 was NCAA crassness at its prime. The powers in Shawnee Mission wanted OU and UGA to drop the anti-trust lawsuit, they wanted the CFA to quit trying to do its own TV.

The solution they came up with was change the "or" in the I-A criteria between sport sponsorship and attendance criteria to an "and" to eliminate a bunch of schools.

The NCAA tried to sugar coat making the following promises. There would be more post-season opportunities, there would be a minimum amount of TV coverage, and there would be no changes that would interfere with schools continuing to play each other if they ended up on different sides of the split.

Horse manure all around.
In short order post-season was deregulated in I-A and every FBS league ended up having more post-season opportunities than any FCS.
The TV deal couldn't be delivered because the NCAA lost the lawsuits and the TV contract.
Before the decade ended the 6-5 bowl eligibility rule was adopted and initially no wins over I-AA would count then it was only one win every four years.

That final change broke the camels back and spurred a dash of schools rushing to I-A. In short order, Akron, LaTech, AState and Nevada were all in or back in I-A and it didn't help when schools regularly playing them said they would no longer play because the bowl eligibility rules.

The schools forced into I-AA got screwed 10 ways to Sunday as the NCAA didn't deliver on the promises and failed the primary missing on keeping the power school using the NCAA to negotiate the TV deal.

I think this is a really radical mischaracterization of what actually happened.

You are portraying it like the evil stepmother NCAA somehow tricked half its member schools into accepting indentured servitude. That’s just completely ridiculous.

Ask yourself, who exactly is the NCAA and where exactly does it derive its power? Further, how did all these rules get passed in the first place?

Because member schools voted on them!

The NCAA is a membership organization. It is not some outside entity that somehow works outside the purview of its member schools. The “NCAA” is just a term for a collection of schools that agree to play by a certain set of rules. As such, the NCAA does what its members want it to do.

If there was a split between the haves and the have-note in the late 70s and early 80s, it was only because the majority of that organization’s membership obviously wanted that split to happen.

What happened in the late 70s and early 80s was that a lot of schools – especially the Ivy League schools that had initially dominated the college football landscape but had steadily lost ground over the decades — had lost their appetite for continually pouring resources into the college athletics black hole because they felt that it was coming at the direct expense of their core academic mission and also because they saw no end in sight to the arms race.

However, they still wanted to compete in high-level athletics.

In other words, a heck of a lot of teams that opted for 1-AA/FCS did so because they were very happy stabilize their extracurricular spending. You will note that the NCAA has not disbanded FCS, which obviously would have happened if everyone - or even the majority of schools- truly hated it.

However, the game-changer happened a few years later when Oklahoma and Georgia won their television lawsuit against the NCAA. That changed the calculus entirely and ultimately paved the way for the super-conference era that has in turn spawned the current dynamic with an organized postseason, conference raiding, conference dedicated television networks, and just an enormous amount of money coming into the haves at the direct expense of the have nots.

The reason we have a burgeoning amount of schools in FBS now is that it is difficult for even small FBS programs like my alma mater, Ohio University, to pass up the money that FBS membership provides. That lure has proven too much for schools like Old Dominion and Liberty and I’m sure others will follow.

Also, some of the schools in the smaller FBS leagues look at the obscene gobs of money continually being pulled in by the schools in the major conferences and of course they want to piece of that pie as well.

Take the AAC, for example. Fans/trustees of every single one of the schools in that league thinks their team is eventually going to be invited into the Big 12, the ACC, etc. why else do you think there’s been a facilities boom in that league? Do you think UCF would have a new stadium without the promise that it’s the start of something very special? What about Houston? Until recently, Connecticut? Cincinnati?

None of those facilities get anywhere near the amount of money they’ve gotten if there wasn’t a firm belief that it will one day pay off in the form of competing at the highest level of the sport – which is obviously not happening now.

Now, obviously those schools are more than worthy of doing that. This is not an indictment of the quality of those schools or their programs, but rather an acknowledgment of the nature of the system.

I suggest you read the articles of the time that talk of NCAA staff and leadership trying to stop the litigation.

The NCAA staff stated that the forcibly reclassified would be given their own mini-TV package, expanded post-season access, and would be able to schedule I-A opponents exactly as they had before.

Those three promises plus the desire to avoid the destruction of the TV deal cornerstoned the vote. You can search the NCAA News archives as well as other major publications and read it all yourself.

The vote was taken with expectations regarding the treatment of the reclassified that were false.

Compare similar situations since that time and the collegial outcome of insuring no one gets kicked out has been the rule ever since.

Not being around back then I am fascinated by this. How were these promises falsified and why weren't there lawsuits if the agreed upon terms were not upheld? Also, what part of the deal was falsified never happened? I'm assuming the FCS playoffs shows that postseason access did exist. Was it the mini-TV package? Normal scheduling against 1-A members?

After forced reclassification games against 1AA members werent regularly counted for bowl eligibility which led to 1A teams dropping them. Promise broken

No tv deal because networks didnt have to deal with the NCAA to get games and didnt want to televise anything below the top tier. Promise broken

Oh wow! Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ouch! That TV one must have really hurt as even today FCS is rarely on TV (though in the 2010s they have been able to get most their games through online streaming at least), but we're talking 30+ yrs after reclassification.
08-02-2019 02:57 PM
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whittx Offline
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Post: #52
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(08-02-2019 11:29 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 09:58 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  
(07-31-2019 03:53 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  I always refer to it as 1981 because the vote was in late 1981 but it in no way, shape, nor form was related to 1978's creation of I-A/I-AA.

1981 was NCAA crassness at its prime. The powers in Shawnee Mission wanted OU and UGA to drop the anti-trust lawsuit, they wanted the CFA to quit trying to do its own TV.

The solution they came up with was change the "or" in the I-A criteria between sport sponsorship and attendance criteria to an "and" to eliminate a bunch of schools.

The NCAA tried to sugar coat making the following promises. There would be more post-season opportunities, there would be a minimum amount of TV coverage, and there would be no changes that would interfere with schools continuing to play each other if they ended up on different sides of the split.

Horse manure all around.
In short order post-season was deregulated in I-A and every FBS league ended up having more post-season opportunities than any FCS.
The TV deal couldn't be delivered because the NCAA lost the lawsuits and the TV contract.
Before the decade ended the 6-5 bowl eligibility rule was adopted and initially no wins over I-AA would count then it was only one win every four years.

That final change broke the camels back and spurred a dash of schools rushing to I-A. In short order, Akron, LaTech, AState and Nevada were all in or back in I-A and it didn't help when schools regularly playing them said they would no longer play because the bowl eligibility rules.

The schools forced into I-AA got screwed 10 ways to Sunday as the NCAA didn't deliver on the promises and failed the primary missing on keeping the power school using the NCAA to negotiate the TV deal.

I think this is a really radical mischaracterization of what actually happened.

You are portraying it like the evil stepmother NCAA somehow tricked half its member schools into accepting indentured servitude. That’s just completely ridiculous.

Ask yourself, who exactly is the NCAA and where exactly does it derive its power? Further, how did all these rules get passed in the first place?

Because member schools voted on them!

The NCAA is a membership organization. It is not some outside entity that somehow works outside the purview of its member schools. The “NCAA” is just a term for a collection of schools that agree to play by a certain set of rules. As such, the NCAA does what its members want it to do.

If there was a split between the haves and the have-note in the late 70s and early 80s, it was only because the majority of that organization’s membership obviously wanted that split to happen.

What happened in the late 70s and early 80s was that a lot of schools – especially the Ivy League schools that had initially dominated the college football landscape but had steadily lost ground over the decades — had lost their appetite for continually pouring resources into the college athletics black hole because they felt that it was coming at the direct expense of their core academic mission and also because they saw no end in sight to the arms race.

However, they still wanted to compete in high-level athletics.

In other words, a heck of a lot of teams that opted for 1-AA/FCS did so because they were very happy stabilize their extracurricular spending. You will note that the NCAA has not disbanded FCS, which obviously would have happened if everyone - or even the majority of schools- truly hated it.

However, the game-changer happened a few years later when Oklahoma and Georgia won their television lawsuit against the NCAA. That changed the calculus entirely and ultimately paved the way for the super-conference era that has in turn spawned the current dynamic with an organized postseason, conference raiding, conference dedicated television networks, and just an enormous amount of money coming into the haves at the direct expense of the have nots.

The reason we have a burgeoning amount of schools in FBS now is that it is difficult for even small FBS programs like my alma mater, Ohio University, to pass up the money that FBS membership provides. That lure has proven too much for schools like Old Dominion and Liberty and I’m sure others will follow.

Also, some of the schools in the smaller FBS leagues look at the obscene gobs of money continually being pulled in by the schools in the major conferences and of course they want to piece of that pie as well.

Take the AAC, for example. Fans/trustees of every single one of the schools in that league thinks their team is eventually going to be invited into the Big 12, the ACC, etc. why else do you think there’s been a facilities boom in that league? Do you think UCF would have a new stadium without the promise that it’s the start of something very special? What about Houston? Until recently, Connecticut? Cincinnati?

None of those facilities get anywhere near the amount of money they’ve gotten if there wasn’t a firm belief that it will one day pay off in the form of competing at the highest level of the sport – which is obviously not happening now.

Now, obviously those schools are more than worthy of doing that. This is not an indictment of the quality of those schools or their programs, but rather an acknowledgment of the nature of the system.

I suggest you read the articles of the time that talk of NCAA staff and leadership trying to stop the litigation.

The NCAA staff stated that the forcibly reclassified would be given their own mini-TV package, expanded post-season access, and would be able to schedule I-A opponents exactly as they had before.

Those three promises plus the desire to avoid the destruction of the TV deal cornerstoned the vote. You can search the NCAA News archives as well as other major publications and read it all yourself.

The vote was taken with expectations regarding the treatment of the reclassified that were false.

Compare similar situations since that time and the collegial outcome of insuring no one gets kicked out has been the rule ever since.

I think UCF would have built a new stadium since they were playing in Legion Field East (a pre-renovation Citrus Bowl in a sketchy neighborhood). I doubt they would have gone straight to a 45,000 seat stadium, though.
08-02-2019 04:20 PM
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solohawks Offline
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Post: #53
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(08-02-2019 02:57 PM)Once a Knight... Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 02:51 PM)solohawks Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 02:21 PM)Once a Knight... Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 11:29 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 09:58 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  I think this is a really radical mischaracterization of what actually happened.

You are portraying it like the evil stepmother NCAA somehow tricked half its member schools into accepting indentured servitude. That’s just completely ridiculous.

Ask yourself, who exactly is the NCAA and where exactly does it derive its power? Further, how did all these rules get passed in the first place?

Because member schools voted on them!

The NCAA is a membership organization. It is not some outside entity that somehow works outside the purview of its member schools. The “NCAA” is just a term for a collection of schools that agree to play by a certain set of rules. As such, the NCAA does what its members want it to do.

If there was a split between the haves and the have-note in the late 70s and early 80s, it was only because the majority of that organization’s membership obviously wanted that split to happen.

What happened in the late 70s and early 80s was that a lot of schools – especially the Ivy League schools that had initially dominated the college football landscape but had steadily lost ground over the decades — had lost their appetite for continually pouring resources into the college athletics black hole because they felt that it was coming at the direct expense of their core academic mission and also because they saw no end in sight to the arms race.

However, they still wanted to compete in high-level athletics.

In other words, a heck of a lot of teams that opted for 1-AA/FCS did so because they were very happy stabilize their extracurricular spending. You will note that the NCAA has not disbanded FCS, which obviously would have happened if everyone - or even the majority of schools- truly hated it.

However, the game-changer happened a few years later when Oklahoma and Georgia won their television lawsuit against the NCAA. That changed the calculus entirely and ultimately paved the way for the super-conference era that has in turn spawned the current dynamic with an organized postseason, conference raiding, conference dedicated television networks, and just an enormous amount of money coming into the haves at the direct expense of the have nots.

The reason we have a burgeoning amount of schools in FBS now is that it is difficult for even small FBS programs like my alma mater, Ohio University, to pass up the money that FBS membership provides. That lure has proven too much for schools like Old Dominion and Liberty and I’m sure others will follow.

Also, some of the schools in the smaller FBS leagues look at the obscene gobs of money continually being pulled in by the schools in the major conferences and of course they want to piece of that pie as well.

Take the AAC, for example. Fans/trustees of every single one of the schools in that league thinks their team is eventually going to be invited into the Big 12, the ACC, etc. why else do you think there’s been a facilities boom in that league? Do you think UCF would have a new stadium without the promise that it’s the start of something very special? What about Houston? Until recently, Connecticut? Cincinnati?

None of those facilities get anywhere near the amount of money they’ve gotten if there wasn’t a firm belief that it will one day pay off in the form of competing at the highest level of the sport – which is obviously not happening now.

Now, obviously those schools are more than worthy of doing that. This is not an indictment of the quality of those schools or their programs, but rather an acknowledgment of the nature of the system.

I suggest you read the articles of the time that talk of NCAA staff and leadership trying to stop the litigation.

The NCAA staff stated that the forcibly reclassified would be given their own mini-TV package, expanded post-season access, and would be able to schedule I-A opponents exactly as they had before.

Those three promises plus the desire to avoid the destruction of the TV deal cornerstoned the vote. You can search the NCAA News archives as well as other major publications and read it all yourself.

The vote was taken with expectations regarding the treatment of the reclassified that were false.

Compare similar situations since that time and the collegial outcome of insuring no one gets kicked out has been the rule ever since.

Not being around back then I am fascinated by this. How were these promises falsified and why weren't there lawsuits if the agreed upon terms were not upheld? Also, what part of the deal was falsified never happened? I'm assuming the FCS playoffs shows that postseason access did exist. Was it the mini-TV package? Normal scheduling against 1-A members?

After forced reclassification games against 1AA members werent regularly counted for bowl eligibility which led to 1A teams dropping them. Promise broken

No tv deal because networks didnt have to deal with the NCAA to get games and didnt want to televise anything below the top tier. Promise broken

Oh wow! Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ouch! That TV one must have really hurt as even today FCS is rarely on TV (though in the 2010s they have been able to get most their games through online streaming at least), but we're talking 30+ yrs after reclassification.

Yeah. The intent of the NCAA was clearly to maintain control of the TV rights for all college football and thereby forcing the network to carry 1AA if they wanted 1A but that didnt happen.

Regional 1A v 1AA rivalries being broken up were bound to happen anyway as TV exploded, see the current state of P5 v G5 games, but the NCAA only allowing 1 1AA school for bowl eligibility 1x over a 4 year period really emphasized the desire to no longer play these games.

With the Court ruling taking TV rights away from the NCAA this forced reclassification seemed dumb and really hurt some programs for no reason. NMSU had the MVC fall apart on them which set the course for their past 30+ years of conference realignment hell. Had the MVC not been forced down schools like NMSU would be in a much better spot.
08-02-2019 06:54 PM
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arkstfan Away
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Post: #54
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(08-02-2019 02:51 PM)solohawks Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 02:21 PM)Once a Knight... Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 11:29 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 09:58 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  
(07-31-2019 03:53 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  I always refer to it as 1981 because the vote was in late 1981 but it in no way, shape, nor form was related to 1978's creation of I-A/I-AA.

1981 was NCAA crassness at its prime. The powers in Shawnee Mission wanted OU and UGA to drop the anti-trust lawsuit, they wanted the CFA to quit trying to do its own TV.

The solution they came up with was change the "or" in the I-A criteria between sport sponsorship and attendance criteria to an "and" to eliminate a bunch of schools.

The NCAA tried to sugar coat making the following promises. There would be more post-season opportunities, there would be a minimum amount of TV coverage, and there would be no changes that would interfere with schools continuing to play each other if they ended up on different sides of the split.

Horse manure all around.
In short order post-season was deregulated in I-A and every FBS league ended up having more post-season opportunities than any FCS.
The TV deal couldn't be delivered because the NCAA lost the lawsuits and the TV contract.
Before the decade ended the 6-5 bowl eligibility rule was adopted and initially no wins over I-AA would count then it was only one win every four years.

That final change broke the camels back and spurred a dash of schools rushing to I-A. In short order, Akron, LaTech, AState and Nevada were all in or back in I-A and it didn't help when schools regularly playing them said they would no longer play because the bowl eligibility rules.

The schools forced into I-AA got screwed 10 ways to Sunday as the NCAA didn't deliver on the promises and failed the primary missing on keeping the power school using the NCAA to negotiate the TV deal.

I think this is a really radical mischaracterization of what actually happened.

You are portraying it like the evil stepmother NCAA somehow tricked half its member schools into accepting indentured servitude. That’s just completely ridiculous.

Ask yourself, who exactly is the NCAA and where exactly does it derive its power? Further, how did all these rules get passed in the first place?

Because member schools voted on them!

The NCAA is a membership organization. It is not some outside entity that somehow works outside the purview of its member schools. The “NCAA” is just a term for a collection of schools that agree to play by a certain set of rules. As such, the NCAA does what its members want it to do.

If there was a split between the haves and the have-note in the late 70s and early 80s, it was only because the majority of that organization’s membership obviously wanted that split to happen.

What happened in the late 70s and early 80s was that a lot of schools – especially the Ivy League schools that had initially dominated the college football landscape but had steadily lost ground over the decades — had lost their appetite for continually pouring resources into the college athletics black hole because they felt that it was coming at the direct expense of their core academic mission and also because they saw no end in sight to the arms race.

However, they still wanted to compete in high-level athletics.

In other words, a heck of a lot of teams that opted for 1-AA/FCS did so because they were very happy stabilize their extracurricular spending. You will note that the NCAA has not disbanded FCS, which obviously would have happened if everyone - or even the majority of schools- truly hated it.

However, the game-changer happened a few years later when Oklahoma and Georgia won their television lawsuit against the NCAA. That changed the calculus entirely and ultimately paved the way for the super-conference era that has in turn spawned the current dynamic with an organized postseason, conference raiding, conference dedicated television networks, and just an enormous amount of money coming into the haves at the direct expense of the have nots.

The reason we have a burgeoning amount of schools in FBS now is that it is difficult for even small FBS programs like my alma mater, Ohio University, to pass up the money that FBS membership provides. That lure has proven too much for schools like Old Dominion and Liberty and I’m sure others will follow.

Also, some of the schools in the smaller FBS leagues look at the obscene gobs of money continually being pulled in by the schools in the major conferences and of course they want to piece of that pie as well.

Take the AAC, for example. Fans/trustees of every single one of the schools in that league thinks their team is eventually going to be invited into the Big 12, the ACC, etc. why else do you think there’s been a facilities boom in that league? Do you think UCF would have a new stadium without the promise that it’s the start of something very special? What about Houston? Until recently, Connecticut? Cincinnati?

None of those facilities get anywhere near the amount of money they’ve gotten if there wasn’t a firm belief that it will one day pay off in the form of competing at the highest level of the sport – which is obviously not happening now.

Now, obviously those schools are more than worthy of doing that. This is not an indictment of the quality of those schools or their programs, but rather an acknowledgment of the nature of the system.

I suggest you read the articles of the time that talk of NCAA staff and leadership trying to stop the litigation.

The NCAA staff stated that the forcibly reclassified would be given their own mini-TV package, expanded post-season access, and would be able to schedule I-A opponents exactly as they had before.

Those three promises plus the desire to avoid the destruction of the TV deal cornerstoned the vote. You can search the NCAA News archives as well as other major publications and read it all yourself.

The vote was taken with expectations regarding the treatment of the reclassified that were false.

Compare similar situations since that time and the collegial outcome of insuring no one gets kicked out has been the rule ever since.

Not being around back then I am fascinated by this. How were these promises falsified and why weren't there lawsuits if the agreed upon terms were not upheld? Also, what part of the deal was falsified never happened? I'm assuming the FCS playoffs shows that postseason access did exist. Was it the mini-TV package? Normal scheduling against 1-A members?

After forced reclassification games against 1AA members werent regularly counted for bowl eligibility which led to 1A teams dropping them. Promise broken

No tv deal because networks didnt have to deal with the NCAA to get games and didnt want to televise anything below the top tier. Promise broken

Deregulated bowl certification leading to an explosion of bowls and FBS leagues were suddenly all guaranteed multiple post-season bids vs FCS where they were guaranteed one. Prior to the change, none of the conferences reclassified had any post-season slot guaranteed because Indy had dropped the SLC

But "selling point'' was I-AA would provide more post-season opportunities.
(This post was last modified: 08-03-2019 02:35 PM by arkstfan.)
08-03-2019 02:34 PM
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arkstfan Away
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Post: #55
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(08-02-2019 06:54 PM)solohawks Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 02:57 PM)Once a Knight... Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 02:51 PM)solohawks Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 02:21 PM)Once a Knight... Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 11:29 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  I suggest you read the articles of the time that talk of NCAA staff and leadership trying to stop the litigation.

The NCAA staff stated that the forcibly reclassified would be given their own mini-TV package, expanded post-season access, and would be able to schedule I-A opponents exactly as they had before.

Those three promises plus the desire to avoid the destruction of the TV deal cornerstoned the vote. You can search the NCAA News archives as well as other major publications and read it all yourself.

The vote was taken with expectations regarding the treatment of the reclassified that were false.

Compare similar situations since that time and the collegial outcome of insuring no one gets kicked out has been the rule ever since.

Not being around back then I am fascinated by this. How were these promises falsified and why weren't there lawsuits if the agreed upon terms were not upheld? Also, what part of the deal was falsified never happened? I'm assuming the FCS playoffs shows that postseason access did exist. Was it the mini-TV package? Normal scheduling against 1-A members?

After forced reclassification games against 1AA members werent regularly counted for bowl eligibility which led to 1A teams dropping them. Promise broken

No tv deal because networks didnt have to deal with the NCAA to get games and didnt want to televise anything below the top tier. Promise broken

Oh wow! Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ouch! That TV one must have really hurt as even today FCS is rarely on TV (though in the 2010s they have been able to get most their games through online streaming at least), but we're talking 30+ yrs after reclassification.

Yeah. The intent of the NCAA was clearly to maintain control of the TV rights for all college football and thereby forcing the network to carry 1AA if they wanted 1A but that didnt happen.

Regional 1A v 1AA rivalries being broken up were bound to happen anyway as TV exploded, see the current state of P5 v G5 games, but the NCAA only allowing 1 1AA school for bowl eligibility 1x over a 4 year period really emphasized the desire to no longer play these games.

With the Court ruling taking TV rights away from the NCAA this forced reclassification seemed dumb and really hurt some programs for no reason. NMSU had the MVC fall apart on them which set the course for their past 30+ years of conference realignment hell. Had the MVC not been forced down schools like NMSU would be in a much better spot.

Arkansas State was playing Ole Miss and Memphis nearly every season initially in I-AA. When the bowl rules changed they dumped the deals.

Probably in a box in our storage locker but used to have a list of all the I-A/I-AA series (ie multiple games) between 1978 and the change in 1988 or 89 whichever it was. There were several extended series in the northeast, including a couple that were home/home. Just been too long since I looked it up to try to remember.
(This post was last modified: 08-03-2019 02:38 PM by arkstfan.)
08-03-2019 02:36 PM
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arkstfan Away
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Post: #56
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(08-02-2019 04:20 PM)whittx Wrote:  I think UCF would have built a new stadium since they were playing in Legion Field East (a pre-renovation Citrus Bowl in a sketchy neighborhood). I doubt they would have gone straight to a 45,000 seat stadium, though.
Interesting I had assumed UCF started at the Citrus back in Division II and then in I-AA.

I lost track of the Knights when they left the Sun Belt over TV. American South absorbed the Sun Belt contracts and so SBC had a deal with one of the Florida RSN's and UCF with the other and got to the point of the two networks suing. UCF opted to leave and since they had pushed back the plans to go I-A indefinitely they got to leave without penalty immediately. Funny thing was Jacksonville soon after left for ASUN citing all the local schools and FIU bailed to replace them. UCF and FAU eventually left as well.

Dolphins didn't have the best luck on that.
08-03-2019 02:44 PM
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DavidSt Offline
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Post: #57
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(08-02-2019 02:51 PM)solohawks Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 02:21 PM)Once a Knight... Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 11:29 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 09:58 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  
(07-31-2019 03:53 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  I always refer to it as 1981 because the vote was in late 1981 but it in no way, shape, nor form was related to 1978's creation of I-A/I-AA.

1981 was NCAA crassness at its prime. The powers in Shawnee Mission wanted OU and UGA to drop the anti-trust lawsuit, they wanted the CFA to quit trying to do its own TV.

The solution they came up with was change the "or" in the I-A criteria between sport sponsorship and attendance criteria to an "and" to eliminate a bunch of schools.

The NCAA tried to sugar coat making the following promises. There would be more post-season opportunities, there would be a minimum amount of TV coverage, and there would be no changes that would interfere with schools continuing to play each other if they ended up on different sides of the split.

Horse manure all around.
In short order post-season was deregulated in I-A and every FBS league ended up having more post-season opportunities than any FCS.
The TV deal couldn't be delivered because the NCAA lost the lawsuits and the TV contract.
Before the decade ended the 6-5 bowl eligibility rule was adopted and initially no wins over I-AA would count then it was only one win every four years.

That final change broke the camels back and spurred a dash of schools rushing to I-A. In short order, Akron, LaTech, AState and Nevada were all in or back in I-A and it didn't help when schools regularly playing them said they would no longer play because the bowl eligibility rules.

The schools forced into I-AA got screwed 10 ways to Sunday as the NCAA didn't deliver on the promises and failed the primary missing on keeping the power school using the NCAA to negotiate the TV deal.

I think this is a really radical mischaracterization of what actually happened.

You are portraying it like the evil stepmother NCAA somehow tricked half its member schools into accepting indentured servitude. That’s just completely ridiculous.

Ask yourself, who exactly is the NCAA and where exactly does it derive its power? Further, how did all these rules get passed in the first place?

Because member schools voted on them!

The NCAA is a membership organization. It is not some outside entity that somehow works outside the purview of its member schools. The “NCAA” is just a term for a collection of schools that agree to play by a certain set of rules. As such, the NCAA does what its members want it to do.

If there was a split between the haves and the have-note in the late 70s and early 80s, it was only because the majority of that organization’s membership obviously wanted that split to happen.

What happened in the late 70s and early 80s was that a lot of schools – especially the Ivy League schools that had initially dominated the college football landscape but had steadily lost ground over the decades — had lost their appetite for continually pouring resources into the college athletics black hole because they felt that it was coming at the direct expense of their core academic mission and also because they saw no end in sight to the arms race.

However, they still wanted to compete in high-level athletics.

In other words, a heck of a lot of teams that opted for 1-AA/FCS did so because they were very happy stabilize their extracurricular spending. You will note that the NCAA has not disbanded FCS, which obviously would have happened if everyone - or even the majority of schools- truly hated it.

However, the game-changer happened a few years later when Oklahoma and Georgia won their television lawsuit against the NCAA. That changed the calculus entirely and ultimately paved the way for the super-conference era that has in turn spawned the current dynamic with an organized postseason, conference raiding, conference dedicated television networks, and just an enormous amount of money coming into the haves at the direct expense of the have nots.

The reason we have a burgeoning amount of schools in FBS now is that it is difficult for even small FBS programs like my alma mater, Ohio University, to pass up the money that FBS membership provides. That lure has proven too much for schools like Old Dominion and Liberty and I’m sure others will follow.

Also, some of the schools in the smaller FBS leagues look at the obscene gobs of money continually being pulled in by the schools in the major conferences and of course they want to piece of that pie as well.

Take the AAC, for example. Fans/trustees of every single one of the schools in that league thinks their team is eventually going to be invited into the Big 12, the ACC, etc. why else do you think there’s been a facilities boom in that league? Do you think UCF would have a new stadium without the promise that it’s the start of something very special? What about Houston? Until recently, Connecticut? Cincinnati?

None of those facilities get anywhere near the amount of money they’ve gotten if there wasn’t a firm belief that it will one day pay off in the form of competing at the highest level of the sport – which is obviously not happening now.

Now, obviously those schools are more than worthy of doing that. This is not an indictment of the quality of those schools or their programs, but rather an acknowledgment of the nature of the system.

I suggest you read the articles of the time that talk of NCAA staff and leadership trying to stop the litigation.

The NCAA staff stated that the forcibly reclassified would be given their own mini-TV package, expanded post-season access, and would be able to schedule I-A opponents exactly as they had before.

Those three promises plus the desire to avoid the destruction of the TV deal cornerstoned the vote. You can search the NCAA News archives as well as other major publications and read it all yourself.

The vote was taken with expectations regarding the treatment of the reclassified that were false.

Compare similar situations since that time and the collegial outcome of insuring no one gets kicked out has been the rule ever since.

Not being around back then I am fascinated by this. How were these promises falsified and why weren't there lawsuits if the agreed upon terms were not upheld? Also, what part of the deal was falsified never happened? I'm assuming the FCS playoffs shows that postseason access did exist. Was it the mini-TV package? Normal scheduling against 1-A members?

After forced reclassification games against 1AA members werent regularly counted for bowl eligibility which led to 1A teams dropping them. Promise broken

No tv deal because networks didnt have to deal with the NCAA to get games and didnt want to televise anything below the top tier. Promise broken


Top FCS schools back in the 1980s and early 1990s were shown a lot on ESPN. Some good match ups back then. Georgia Southern and Texas State were darlings with ESPN back then. ESPN is not afraid to show FCS games.
08-03-2019 03:00 PM
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solohawks Offline
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Post: #58
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(08-03-2019 02:36 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 06:54 PM)solohawks Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 02:57 PM)Once a Knight... Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 02:51 PM)solohawks Wrote:  
(08-02-2019 02:21 PM)Once a Knight... Wrote:  Not being around back then I am fascinated by this. How were these promises falsified and why weren't there lawsuits if the agreed upon terms were not upheld? Also, what part of the deal was falsified never happened? I'm assuming the FCS playoffs shows that postseason access did exist. Was it the mini-TV package? Normal scheduling against 1-A members?

After forced reclassification games against 1AA members werent regularly counted for bowl eligibility which led to 1A teams dropping them. Promise broken

No tv deal because networks didnt have to deal with the NCAA to get games and didnt want to televise anything below the top tier. Promise broken

Oh wow! Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ouch! That TV one must have really hurt as even today FCS is rarely on TV (though in the 2010s they have been able to get most their games through online streaming at least), but we're talking 30+ yrs after reclassification.

Yeah. The intent of the NCAA was clearly to maintain control of the TV rights for all college football and thereby forcing the network to carry 1AA if they wanted 1A but that didnt happen.

Regional 1A v 1AA rivalries being broken up were bound to happen anyway as TV exploded, see the current state of P5 v G5 games, but the NCAA only allowing 1 1AA school for bowl eligibility 1x over a 4 year period really emphasized the desire to no longer play these games.

With the Court ruling taking TV rights away from the NCAA this forced reclassification seemed dumb and really hurt some programs for no reason. NMSU had the MVC fall apart on them which set the course for their past 30+ years of conference realignment hell. Had the MVC not been forced down schools like NMSU would be in a much better spot.

Arkansas State was playing Ole Miss and Memphis nearly every season initially in I-AA. When the bowl rules changed they dumped the deals.

Probably in a box in our storage locker but used to have a list of all the I-A/I-AA series (ie multiple games) between 1978 and the change in 1988 or 89 whichever it was. There were several extended series in the northeast, including a couple that were home/home. Just been too long since I looked it up to try to remember.

I figured the northeast would be hit the worst as they had the bulk of smaller private schools that would "benefit" from 1AA yet had history with the larger 1A schools.

Again, the whole thing seemed like a desperate attempt to maintain status quo. With status quo ending regardless a whole bunch of teams were reclassified against their will and were not able to reap the benefits TV deregulation could have provided them
08-03-2019 05:34 PM
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Post: #59
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(08-03-2019 03:00 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  Top FCS schools back in the 1980s and early 1990s were shown a lot on ESPN. Some good match ups back then. Georgia Southern and Texas State were darlings with ESPN back then. ESPN is not afraid to show FCS games.

ESPN was still relatively new then, so they needed to air anything they could get their hands on. I believe that one of the first college games they broadcast was between App and Western Carolina. ESPN didn't become popular until they started airing the Big East basketball games.
08-03-2019 07:18 PM
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AppManDG Offline
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Post: #60
RE: What happened during the Div 1-A / 1-AA (FBS/FCS) split in 1978?
(07-31-2019 01:46 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  1978 split was pretty agreeable in how it happened.

There were conferences playing Division I in everything except football and the belief was they needed to play everything Division I except they weren't especially enthusiastic about Division I football and the high scholarship limit and lack of post-season opportunity that would exist for them.

The solution simply was to split football into I-A and I-AA with a lower scholarship limit, allowing one less assistant coach and the NCAA would provide a post-season opportunity for them. They wouldn't be in on the NCAA TV deal but their savings on 25 scholarships and one assistant position was more money than what their conference share of TV would have been.

It was truly a mutual deal. Those schools felt it was a better solution for them in being pushed to give up Division II football than being in an undivided Division I where they could offer fewer scholarships but would have no post-season to play for.

It was far from mutual in a lot of places. 1-AA was voluntary for the first 5 years. The SoCon vowed to retain 1-A status, but in 1978 that position weakened when William & Mary, Richmond and ECU left over a disagreement of some new additions to the conference. They opted for a 1-A independents status. Only ECU made the investment by expanded their stadium to 35K. The SoCon, Southland, PCAA and Missouri Valley were forced into 1-AA in 1982. There were split conferences like the Missouri Valley & PCAA with teams classified 1-A and 1-AA. The MAC was initially classified 1-AA, but a number of former MAC coaches who had moved up to Big Ten Schools who wanted to schedule their old schools petitioned the NCAA and got a waiver for their old conference to remain 1-A. Between 1984 & '86 a handful of schools, including W&M and Richmond, were reclassified back into 1-AA.
08-03-2019 10:32 PM
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